


another life (in another light)

by Welcoming_Disaster



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Also Regular Steve, Angst, Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Hydra Steve Rogers, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Secret Empire (Marvel), Secret Identity, Time Travel, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welcoming_Disaster/pseuds/Welcoming_Disaster
Summary: When Steve Rogers from fourteen years in the future crashes in the Avengers Mansion, Tony Stark is happy to help him -- and to accept his help in return.But Steve can't help feeling that something is off.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60





	another life (in another light)

**Author's Note:**

> Using this for my stevetony bingo square: "Did anyone else see...?"
> 
> Written for the following prompt: 
> 
> "When a Captain America from the future shows up in Avengers Mansion the team is a little shocked at first but he seems to mean well. Except Steve starts to notice how interested this cap seems to be in Mr. Stark, and the way he acts sometimes rubs Steve the wrong way.  
> Or: Hydra Cap meets the early avengers and means to take Tony for himself, but Steve is not about to just accept that sitting down"
> 
> See endnotes for content warnings! Hope you like it!

Their unexpected guest arrived at four PM on a sunny Thursday afternoon. It was May 30th, which is the day after Tony’s birthday, and a Friday. The Avengers had thrown an awkward little party for their benefactor. Steve, who had baked the cake out of a box mix he’d bought at the grocery store and whipped up icing on the mansion’s stand mixer, which made him feel like a millionaire, felt self-conscious of it.

The feeling stemmed, probably, from his strange emotions about the man himself. It wasn’t that they disliked each other; they’d always been cordial. Steve liked the guy, wanted the guy to like him back. Mr. Stark had offered Steve room in his home. Mr. Stark had funded the team. Mr. Stark joined Steve, these days, for games of tennis and lunches out on the mansion’s terrace. But something about the man’s presence — his perfectly tailored clothes, his simple, expensive colognes, the air of sophistication which hung around him — made Steve feel like he was somehow not enough.

Now, staring at his lopsided little cake, unevenly covered with frosting and shaky lettering, he felt this more than ever.

Should have asked Jarvis. Should have just bought something. He didn’t know why he’d decided to bake at all; perhaps, and now he felt stupid for it, he’d thought he’d impress Tony Stark with something old fashioned, something heartfelt.

The Wasp, at least, was good at her assigned job; the ballroom of the mansion, which they had chosen for their party space, was decorated in impeccable style. Thor was arranging store-bought finger foods messily on plates and pouring glasses of mead on one side and orange juice on the other. Giant Man, Hawkeye, and the twins, none of them trusted with anything else, had shown up.

Iron Man had told them he wouldn’t be able to make it. Iron Man, Steve remembered, still fretting over the cake, which looked messy at best despite his best efforts, had also encouraged Steve to bake.

“Mr. Stark isn’t as much of a snob as he says he is,” Iron Man had told him, “I’m sure he’d love to have something like that.” He had sounded like he believed it, and at the time, it’d been easy to agree.

Now, Steve wasn’t so sure. Maybe this was a prank, and there was a reason Iron Man hadn’t shown up. It didn’t quite seem his style, but, as uneasy as he felt about the whole thing, Steve was ready to believe it.

“Where’s he at?” He asked the Wasp, coming in to set the cake on the table among Thor’s offerings. “Didn’t end up having a date and leaving, did he?”

He would almost have preferred it; then, at least, they could have a nice team party, no grand expectations. Sure, the team didn’t _quite_ feel complete without Iron Man, but Steve felt at ease with their little group, the kind of battle-forged ease that didn’t expect to Tony Stark.

Maybe he was just being sour over how his cake had turned out.

“Nope,” the Wasp told him cheerfully, “he’s still down in the workshop. C’mon, Cap, let’s go fetch him.”

She looped her arm through his and tugged him down with her, chattering all the while. “OK, so. I’m gonna be covering his eyes, which is gonna be hard since he’s too tall for his own good, so you’re gonna have to get all the doors and catch us if we fall, chap, are you ready for that? I’m sure you can bench-press us, so—“

Steve held the door of the workshop open for her, and she remembered herself and stopped talking.

Tony Stark, dressed in a white lab coat over his classic three-piece suit, oversized goggles covering the top half of his face, was positioned at a lab counter, taking readings from a device Steve could make neither heads nor tails of. When he glanced up at them, he looked more amused than surprised.

“Hi, Tony,” the Wasp said. Though Steve didn’t know her identity, he knew the Wasp’s friendship with Tony Stark was old, “Are you busy?”

“Well,” Tony said, “Twenty minutes ago, I would have told you I wasn’t, but…”

He gestured at the machine he was looking at, frowning. “I’ve been getting some really unusual readings here in the lab. Might be a ripple in spacetime, even, so I’m gonna have to check this out.“

“Well, if time isn’t linear,” the Wasp suggested, “maybe it can wait. We’ve got something we want to show you.”

“Nice try,” Tony said distractedly, turning back to his machine. “Just give me a few minutes here, folks, you can have a seat if you want one.”

Steve sat down by the counter, and the Wasp perched next to him, playing with one of Tony’s paperweights. They watched, both uncomprehending, as he turned dials and knobs, frowning slightly at the device.

“I think,” he said, slowly, “that the issue is h—“

And then, quite suddenly, a man crashed into the workshop, sending a rack of test tubes and a square, metallic generator flying onto the floor. Steve wasn’t sure where, exactly, he’d come from; he didn’t catch the beginnings of the fall. No portal had opened up.

One moment, the man had not been there. The next, he was falling onto the workshop’s floor.

He fell face down, only barely catching himself on his elbows, and something made an uncomfortable, creaky sort of _crack_ as he fell, followed by the clink of metal against the tile floor. He was a big man, blond, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He smelled like sweat, and his hair, from behind, looked greasy.

Steve pulled his shield out and stepped forward, between Tony and the new arrival.

“Get back,” he told him; Tony, after all, was a civilian, and he didn’t want him to get hurt. And, shield still in hand, he knelt cautiously by the man on the floor. He didn’t quite know where to start. “Are you alright, mister?”

The man grunted, and, with some effort, pulled himself up on his elbows. As he set up, Steve saw his hands were cuffed together with a long chain, heavy metal. His face was dirty, dust clinging to his well-defined, flat cheekbones, an un-groomed beard taking up most of the real estate of his chin. His eyes, a bright blue-green, were alert and aware, calculating.

With a jolt, Steve realized he was looking at his own face. For a moment, as they locked eyes, he thought he saw something flicker over his other-self’s face; hatred, so pure, so vitriolic it made him shiver.

And then the other man looked past him at the lab, his eyes stopping first on the Wasp and then on Tony, and his expression changed so quickly that Steve wondered if he’d been seeing things. Had anyone else caught that look?

“Ah,” he said, pleasant, “Seems that portal had worked a little too well. Mind telling me the date?”

For a moment, Steve was struck dumb. It was Tony that spoke up. “May 30th,” he said, “2004.”

“Ah,” New-Steve sat up, and took his counterpart’s cautiously offered hand, getting to his feet, “Happy late birthday. 25’s a biggie, isn’t it?”

It was bit of a shock that Tony Stark was only twenty-five, a year younger than Steve. Steve wondered why he’d never known, never thought to check, how old the man was. It wasn’t really that he looked much older — though, with the wrinkles under his eyes, between his brows, he kind of did— but the way that he carried himself, the authority and wealth he seemed to convey.

“Oh,” Tony said, looking pleasantly surprised, “Thank you. Yes, er. And you’re— wait, don’t tell me.”

He squinted into his device, frowning slightly, and seemed to do some kind of rapid fire math in his head, “Around 2018.”

“That I am. November.”

“Why are you wearing that?” Steve asked, trying not to sound suspicious. “What happened?”

“I was wrongfully imprisoned,” 2018-Steve said, casting his eyes down, “by the Skull’s people. My own people — my team, I mean — tried to bust me out, but something went wrong with the portal.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” The Wasp cried, stepping forward to wipe a piece of grime off his face. New-Steve bows his head and submits to the scrubbing, looking at ease, looking comforted. “Tony, darling, can you get those handcuffs off him?”

“Of course I can,” Tony reached over, setting a light hand on the newcomer’s orange-clad elbow, and led him gently over to the rack of power tools.

“Should have done this yesterday,” the Wasp told Steve, sounding amused, “no weird superhero stuff then.”

“With our luck,” Steve says, “there would have been.”

Tony cut the cuffs with some sort of specialized metal saw, and, as they rejoined the other two men, New-Steve set a hand lightly on Tony’s upper arm, walking much closer to him than Steve ever dared.

On principle, Steve disliked that.

“Well,” Tony said, “the good news is that I can fix this pretty easily. The bad news is, it overloaded my machines. The calculations alone are probably going to take up all night.”

“Does that mean you’re going to be stuck in the lab all that time?” The Wasp asked, sounding a little pouty.

“Oh, no, I can set this up, let it run, and get this guy home tomorrow.” Tony said, giving her a smile, tired but fond, and glanced back over at 2018-Steve, “Unless there’s a 2018 Tony Stark that can beat me to it.”

“Oh,” A sadness flashed on future-Steve’s face that could only mean one thing. “No. No, that won’t be possible.”

Tony didn’t look surprised, only grim, like something unpleasant had just been confirmed for him. He raised his hand to his chest, as though feeling for his own heartbeat, and dropped it again. “Was it—?”

A look passed over future-Steve’s face, so quick Steve was sure he was the only one who had seen it. It was calculating. It was cold. It was anything, briefly, but sympathetic. But then his face settled into a grim sort of half-frown, and he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, “it was.”

“Ah. Well. Nothing surprising there.” Tony clicked his tongue, and then seemed to force himself to focus on different matters, “If you’d like to shower and change, I’ll have Jarvis bring down some clothes for you. You can meet us three at the party.”

“Hey!” The Wasp interrupted, “How did you know there was a party?”

“Confetti on your shoulder, my dear,” Tony said, reaching over to pluck a bright green piece from her dress, “and my birthday yesterday. I’d hardly need to be Sherlock Holmes. Will you find the showers okay, Cap?”

“Yes,” future-Steve said, giving him a quick, tight smile. His eyes on Tony were attentive, as though anticipating his every move. “I’ll see you fine folks there.”

He squeezed Tony’s upper arm before he left, quick and friendly, and Tony’s expression, briefly, reflected a delighted sort of surprise.

“Cap baked,” the Wasp tattled, as they made their way up to the elevator. “It’s, like, super crooked.”

“I’m sure it’s lovely,” Tony said, sounding a little distracted.

The elevator doors opened. The rest of the Avengers, who’d probably been getting impatient waiting, exploded streamers and tossed handfuls of confetti at them.

“He caught on,” the Wasp said, sadly, but immediately perked up again, “A for effort, though, guys.”

“This all looks great,” Tony said, “Sorry I was late. You won’t believe what happened at the lab.”

Steve sat down, unnecessarily glum, and the Wasp and Tony recounted the events of the evening. His cake was cut up, and, still talking, Tony took a slice, and Steve’s mood dropped even further.

He didn’t know what the issue was.

He hadn’t wanted Tony to see the cake. The cake looked like garbage. He should have been happy that it had been cut up without any attention being paid to it.

And yet.

He accepted a glass of mead from Thor, sipping at it sulkily on the couch. His bad feeling, he told himself, was probably not justified; the man had clearly been _him_ , after all — and perhaps he’d been scared, earlier, and Steve had misinterpreted the look. They’d dealt with shapeshifting aliens once before, and maybe future Steve had assumed him to be foe, before he’d taken stock of the situation. Steve, after all, was not often in the position of trying to judge the expressions on his own face from the outside.

But his gut kept telling him something was wrong.

The couch shifted, and Steve realized that Tony had just sat down next to him, his own glass of mead in hand. He sat down how he always sat down, keeping a good three inches of space between himself and Steve, his elbows at his sides as though to protect his core.

Steve was used to it.

“That must have been strange, for you,” Tony said. He was eating cake carefully with a dessert fork, eat bite a perfect proportion of icing to dough. “Any thoughts?”

Steve considered telling him his misgivings, but even to him, they sounded stupid; future-him had looked at him wrong. Future-him had seemed calculating. Future-him had gotten touchy with Tony, which, for some reason, had actually seemed welcome.

Steve wished, suddenly, that Iron Man was there. He could speak his mind with Iron Man without worrying about looking silly.

“Just, er, 2018. Fourteen years.” Steve said, “Crazy to think about, isn’t it?”

Tony was silent, his fork clinking against his plate.

“And you, uh…” Steve didn’t know if he ought to bring it up. It didn’t seem right. “… not being there. For some reason.”

It was an obvious request for elaboration, the kind of statement too polite to be a question but clearly inching in that direction. Tony set his cake down and picked up his mead.

“Well,” he said, in the kind of calm, measured voice he used when speaking to TV crews, low and trustworthy, “Maybe I’ve moved on to other projects.”

Steve turned to face him. Remembering the little gesture from earlier in the workshop, the hand Tony had placed on his chest, he glanced down to his heart and then up to his eyes.

“Mr. Stark,” he started, “Tony—”

But that was when his future self entered the room, wearing Steve’s clothes, fresh and clean-shaven. Steve glanced him up and down, frowned.

He didn’t look forty. In fact, it if wasn’t for the bruises on his face and the longer, shaggier hair, he could have easily passed for Steve himself.

Future Steve sat down on the couch next to them, his side brushing against Tony’s. For a moment, Steve expected Tony to stand up and go, but instead he moved awkwardly to one side, leaving two inches between him and each Steve.

“Thank you again,” Future-Steve said, and gestured to Tony’s plate. “Are you going to finish that?”

“No,” Tony said, “no, help yourself.”

Future-Steve picked up his plate, finishing the remaining cake in several big bites. “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised. “’s good.”

“Thanks.” Steve said, drily, and couldn’t help pointing out. “You’ve barely aged. In fourteen years.”

“Oh, yes,” Future-Steve told him. “I haven’t aged at all. That’s the serum.”

“Oh,” Steve said, dully. The information settled uneasily in the pit of his stomach. The people around him would age, change. Fourteen years from now, he’d still look twenty-five. “Guess I’ve got that to look forward to. Is there, uh—“

He wasn’t sure what he was about to ask, and he stopped talking when, next to him, Tony started to rise of the couch.

Familiarly, Future-Steve caught him by the upper arm.

“Sorry, would you mind hanging back?” He asked, “I’d really like to talk to you, when you’ve got a minute. Future stuff, about.” He glanced back over at Steve, and then at Tony, his expression meaningful. “You know.”

“Oh,” Tony said, “sure, yes. W— Cap, would you mind?”

Steve nodded, quick, tight, and stood instead. As he stepped away, he noticed Future-Steve replacing Tony’s empty glass of mead with a full one, and something curdled in the pit of his stomach.

But there was nothing wrong, was there? They were at a party. All of them were drinking. He’d only been polite.

He tried, valiantly, to be polite, crossing to the other side of the room. For the next while, he chatted idly with Thor and Clint, tolerated the Wasp fretting over the length of hair which would look best on him, now that she could compare them side-by-side, and then, under the guise of grabbing himself snacks, he gravitated back to towards the couch. They were in a public space, he told himself, any eavesdropping would be accidental.

Future-Steve and Tony were talking about advances in open-heart surgery, and Tony was drinking, judging by his slightly slurred speech, his fourth of fifth glass of mead.

That was quick.

About to say something, he locked eyes with his future self, and the other man stood. “You’ll have to show me at the workshop,” he told Tony.

“Oh,” Tony said, following him up, and turned back towards the party, “I’ll see you later, folks! Thank you all for this.”

“Walking out of your own party, Mr. Stark?” Steve asked, both amused and stung despite himself.

“I’m an eccentric billionaire scientist,” Tony told him, “it’s what we do.”

He was the tiniest bit unsteady on his feet, and, as he left, future-Steve wrapped a casual arm around his waist.

A strange suspicion, almost too strange to be investigated, made its home in Steve’s head. It was too pressing, too strange, to be ignored, and, slowly, he followed his counterpart and Tony down the hallway.

If they turned downstairs, they were headed towards the workshop. But if they turned up, in the direction of the bedrooms, of Tony’s bedroom, then—

But, no, they were headed down.

The awful, tangled feeling receded. They were going to the workshop. They were going to talk shop.

Steve returned to the party. Steve joined his little team in laughing, lightly, fondly, at Tony for rushing out. Steve participated in the future speculation brought on by the time travel. Steve helped clean up.

And the entire time, he couldn’t help the awful worry pooling in the pit of his stomach. Something, his gut was telling him, was about to go awfully wrong. Tony was distant, sure, but he’d never been a jerk. For him to leave the party thrown for him early, to barely talk to anyone there, to brush Steve off — well, it all seemed strange.

Whatever had been said, it was affecting him deeply. Steve didn’t trust it to be a good thing.

And so, an hour after the party, he followed his future self and Tony into the workshop. He burst in without knocking and found no horrible scene awaited him.

Tony was seated on the counter, his face tense, upset, and leaning against the wall. Future Steve was talking to him, using a ruler to gesture as he spoke.

“Are you sure,” Tony asked, his quiet voice only audible across the workshop to Steve’s superhuman ears, “that it’s safe?”

“It should be,” Future-Steve promised, “and it’s your best option. There’s not a lot of time left, and… we miss you. We need you. We could make you happy. We could keep you safe.”

With each sentence, the _we_ began to sound more like an _I._

Strangely, this seemed more intimate to Steve than it would have been had they really gone into the bedroom.

“Dear God,” Tony said, his voice even quieter than before, “I need to think about it.”

“Please do.” Future-Steve set down the ruler and rose.

Realizing he’d be caught eavesdropping if he didn’t, Steve knocked loudly on the workshop door. Both men looked up at him, surprised.

“Steve?” Tony asked, jumping unsteadily down from the counter.

“Do you have a minute?” Steve called.

Tony glanced at the other Steve, who shrugged. “I was just leaving.”

“Sure,” Tony said, “Come in.”

The older man was unobtrusive as he left. He didn’t try to convince Tony of anything else. He didn’t throw any strange looks in Steve’s direction. He seemed, if anything, only concerned.

They waited until they heard future-Steve’s footsteps on the stairs, followed by the level whirring of the elevator.

“What were you talking about?” Steve asked, unable to help himself.

For a long few moments, Tony was silent. He was leaning heavily against the wall, bracing himself with flat palms against the counter he was sitting on. Two glasses, empty of everything but ice, told Steve that the pair hadn’t stopped drinking after they’d left the little party.

Slowly, Tony raised a hand to his face, pressing his palm against his eye. He was moving sluggishly, unsteadily.

“You’d be okay without me, wouldn’t you?” He asked, speaking so softly Steve could only barely pick it up, “I’m leaving all my money to the Avengers. Iron Man, I—“

He glanced down, away. “I could find a way to make him stay. Someone else who— I could find a way, Cap, I could.”

“You’re drunk,” Steve told him, gentle but firm, “you don’t know what you’re saying, Mr. Stark. Let me walk you up.”

Tony hopped down from the counter, stumbling slightly. Emboldened by the earlier touching, Steve took him by the arm, and Tony sagged heavily against him. Still, though, he seemed to be keeping an elbow between himself and Steve, the same strange, protecting-the-core sort of gesture.

“He wanted you to come with him.” He said, the question implied in his statement.

Silently, Tony nodded.

Steve walked him into the elevator, pressing the button for the top floor.

“I know,” Steve started cautiously, “That you don’t spend as much time with the team as, er, the rest of us, but— we’re all very grateful to you. You spend so much time on our suits, on our technology. You opened your home to us, to— to me. I didn’t have anywhere to go.”

He realized, then, that he was talking about this in transactional terms, monetary terms. The things Tony Stark had done for them, for him. Before he could mention anything else — the lunches, the games of tennis, the strange, nervous sort of affection he felt for Tony, the way he’d been worried—the elevator drew to a stop.

His eyes downcast, Tony stumbled heavily on his way out, and Steve stepped forward to catch him, his hand on his lower back, where it met—

“Is that metal?” Steve asked, unable to help feeling his way up Tony’s back, where lukewarm, hard metal seemed to bracket his whole upper body. “Mr. Stark, what—?”

Tony stumbled back, catching himself roughly on the wall. “God,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jesus, Cap.”

For a moment, everything was silent. Steve tried to think of explanation, of anything that made sense. A bulletproof vest? Some kind of device?

“I have— I have a heart thing,” Tony said, after a long moment, “I wear assistive tech. But it won’t—“ he gestured up at his chest, sighed, “it’s not sustainable, Cap. It’s not going to last fourteen years.”

 _I’m not going to last fourteen years_ hung in the air, unspoken.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve said, for lack of anything else to say, “I didn’t know.”

Tony glanced away, “He said they could fix it, in the future. That if I went with him—“

He could live. And what could Steve say to that?

Silently, Steve guided Tony over to sit on his bed, helping him down. Tony was staring down at the floor, avoiding his eyes. “You’ll be okay,” he repeated, “won’t you be okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, realizing he couldn’t be so selfish, couldn’t keep Tony from this. “Yeah, of course. When are you going?”

“Tomorrow morning. Seven or eight. It’ll be my only chance, with how these things are structured.”

“I’ll be there.” Steve said, stepping forward. He reached over to squeeze Tony’s shoulder, but only metal met his hand. “And I’ll miss you.”

Well. He supposed that was the reason Tony didn’t touch people.

“You’ll see me again,” Tony said, giving him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Fourteen years, if I don’t find a way back sooner.”

“Yeah.” Steve said, “I suppose I will.”

He shut the door gently when he left the room, unease written into every line of his body. He didn’t sleep that night, and seven AM on the dot found him waiting by the doors of the workshop.

His counterpart arrived first. He seemed a little surprised to see Steve, his face screwing up in not-quite-concern.

“Good morning.” He said. “Have you come to…?”

“See Tony off,” Steve said, giving his counterpart a flat, tight smile. He wanted to see the other man’s reaction, find some reason to disbelieve this, to call it off, to tell Tony his suspicions, but he was disappointed; the other man only nodded at him.

“I’ll look after him,” he promised, “he’ll be okay.”

And Steve supposed he was going to have to trust that.

Tony appeared in the hallway before they had the chance to talk further. He was dressed in a nondescript black outside wear, sporty and form fitting, and he looked awful, dark circles obvious under his eyes. He was carrying a backpack, and bundles of paper, and he seemed a little surprised to see two of Steve.

He stopped, glanced back between the two of them as though taking a second to orient himself, to tell them apart, and turned to Steve.

“You came?” He sounded a little surprised.

“Of course, yeah,” Steve said, “wanted to make sure everything was OK.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Can you take these, then?”

He offered Steve the papers, which were in envelopes.

“Letters?” Steve asked, thumbing through.

“Happy Hogan, James Rhodes, the team,” Tony said, “a couple others. Will you—?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Part of him, still, selfishly wanted to stop Tony, to grab him by the sleeve, to tell him every reason not to go. But he couldn’t, couldn’t choose his momentary happiness over his friend’s life. “Of course.”

He took the letters from Tony, thumbed through them, and tucked him into his inside pocket. “Nothing for Iron Man?” He asked, noticing the missing letter. He didn’t want a momentary lapse of memory to leave the guy feeling abandoned, forgotten — and they’d certainly always been close, Iron Man and Tony, right?

A kind of deep pain flashed across Tony’s face, a sort of longing, a guilt. He glanced down, shook his head. “We talked last night,” he said, “Iron Man and I. He knows.”

“Ah,” Steve said. “Well. I’ll be there for him. Talk it over. I’m sure we’ll both need it.”

For some reason, this didn’t seem to comfort Tony. He looked about to cry, and, slow, he stepped closer to Steve, his fingers brushing lightly against his sleeve. “I—“

“We should go,” Future-Steve said abruptly, interrupting them. “Whatever you’ve set it up to do, it’s working. I can feel it pulling me.”

“Already?” For a moment, Steve hoped his counterpart had been lying, that this was some kind of diversion, but a portal was opening, slowly, in the middle of the workshop, glowing light blue and pulsing. Steve could see nothing beyond the swirling rectangular void.

“I didn’t do that,” Tony said, frowning. “I hadn’t even gotten started. Someone on your side must be trying to get you back, after all.”

“Well,” Future-Steve said, “that’s a pleasant surprise. Shall we?”

Tony glanced back once to his Steve, and stuck his hand out, uncertainly, for a handshake. “Fourteen years, old friend,” he said, and for a moment, Steve heard someone else in his voice, someone closer to him. He couldn’t place it, couldn’t say who, and so he stuck his hand out and shook Tony’s firmly.

“You’d best take care of that heart of yours,” Steve said, “Good luck.”

They held eyes for a moment. Tony seemed on the verge of saying something else, but he pushed it down, smiled at Steve once, his blue eyes watering. “Goodbye, Winghead,” he said, Iron Man’s nickname for him — funny, the sorts of things people said in times like these — and took future-Steve’s hand.

They made a good looking pair, the two of them, Steve thought distantly, watching the two silhouettes enter the portal, nearly the same height, Tony’s slightly slimmer, sharper figure a pleasant contrast to Steve’s wide, stocky build. They walked together like old friends, like a couple, hand in hand, except—

Except, suddenly, Tony was stumbling back, and Steve had him by the hand, by the wrist. Tony was digging his heels in, and, as the portal started to close around them, future-Steve was yanking him bodily back in.

Steve dashed forward and grabbed for Tony, his fingers closing on his other wrist. The portal, shutting slowly around them, made it impossible to see the other Steve, and he didn’t know if Tony had managed to break away from his grasp. Steve’s only option, here, was to pull on Tony’s hand with all his might.

For a moment, with Tony playing the role of _rope_ in their game of tug-of-war, Steve could focus on nothing but worst-cases.

 _We’re gonna rip him in half,_ he thought, _equal on both sides. We’ll tear him apart._ And then, _The portal’s gonna close around us. It’s going to cut him in half._

And then, quite suddenly, something on the other side gave, and Tony was tumbling forward into him, knocking Steve flat on his back.

He was pale, breathing heavily. Steve’s heart pounded desperately against his ribs, relief and worry mingling. “Ow,” he muttered, and rolled off Steve.

“Tony,” he breathed, “Jesus Christ, Tony. Are you alright?”

Tony, he realized, was shaking slightly. “Yeah,” he said, a little too fast, panicky, “Yeah, I think I am, I got there, and—“

He rolled up his sleeves. Two near-identical bruises, red imprints of fingers, were forming on his wrists.

“Sorry,” Steve said, pulling himself up. Tony accepted his offered hand, and stood with his hands braced on his knees, huffing out like he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

Steve reached up to put two hands on his shoulders, bracing them, and Tony’s eyes darted towards him.

“I’m alright,” he said, again, “Just a shock. I saw the other side of the portal, Cap, and— they weren’t our men. The people getting him out, hailing him, saluting him.”

“Who— who were they?” Steve asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Tony reached up to his own shoulder, indicating the place where an armband would sit. “Hydra. They were Hydra.”

Steve must have paled. Tony squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

“I should have known he was lying to me,” he said, “I should have—“

“I should have said something,” Steve interrupted. “He seemed wrong, he seemed off. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“It must have been— I don’t even know what,” Tony said, shaking his head. “He told me everything I wanted to hear. Promised me everything I wanted to have.”

His eyes had been watering, earlier, as he’d said his goodbye. Now, a single tear slipped out and ran down his cheek, leaving a shiny wet trail behind. “God.”

Steve remembered future-Steve’s —fake Steve’s— words earlier. _We miss you. We need you. We could make you happy. We could keep you safe._

Well. Steve couldn’t do anything about the heart. He couldn’t keep Tony safe, but.

“Tony?” He asked, gently, “You know I didn’t want to let you go, right?”

Tony glanced up at him, a sharp, birdlike gesture.“What?”

“I couldn’t have asked you to stay,” Steve said, “Not if your life was on the line. But I’d miss you, Tony. Not as my boss, or the team’s benefactor, but as a friend.”

Tony stared at him, silent. His surprise, his disbelief showed.

“I like having lunch with you,” Steve said, feeling a little silly. “I like our games of tennis. You gave me a room here, but it’s— it’s the way you treat me that makes it a home. The way you treat all of us. We’d miss you. All of us would. We need you here, too.”

And then, just like that, Tony was crying. He was a quiet crier, his face screwed up on itself as though to keep the tears in, eyes squeezed shut.

His hands were still on Tony’s shoulders, stabilizing, and it was easy to urge him forward, to close his arms around the unyielding metal brace. Tony buried his face in Steve’s shoulder, leaving tiny wet spots on shirt, and clung to him like a drowning man.

“I didn’t know,” he said, “I didn’t know, Cap.”

“I can’t help your heart,” Steve said, his hand slipping upwards to rest on the back of Tony’s neck, just where the metal stopped. “But as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here.”

Today, maybe it’d be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: Tony is heavily hinted to be an alcoholic when the time this fic is set. He drinks heavily. He's also got a heart condition which is believes will kill him soon. The source material tells us he'll be just fine & eventually go sober, so we as readers can assume this happens. :) General Hydra!Cap warning, though his character isn't really explored in great depth. 
> 
> I hope you liked this fic! You can find me on tumblr at welcomingdisaster.tumblr.com, & I always appreciate comments & kudos.


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